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Posts Tagged: PLC

The U.S.Department of Homeland Security is warning that a witches brew of recent events make it increasingly likely that politically or ideologically motivated hackers may launch digital attacks against industrial control systems. The alert was issued the same day that security researchers published information about an undocumented software backdoor in industrial control systems sold by hundreds different manufacturers and widely used in power plants, military environments and nautical ships.

The information about the backdoor was published by industrial control systems (ICS) security vendor Digital Bond, which detailed how a component used in industrial control systems sold by 261 manufacturers contains a functionality that will grant remote access to anyone who knows the proper command syntax and inner workings of the device, leaving systems that are connected to the public open to malicious tampering.

In an interview with Ars Technica, Reid Wightman, a researcher formerly with Digital Bond and now at security firm ioActive, said there was “absolutely no authentication needed to perform this privileged command.” Of the two specific programmable logic controllers (PLCs) Wightman tested, both allowed him to issue commands that halted the devices’ process control.

“Imagine if your laptop had a service that accepted an unauthenticated ‘shutdown’ command, and if someone sent it your laptop [would] shut off and you [would lose] all your work,” Wightman told Ars. “Anybody on the network could shut off your laptop without needing your password. That would suck. And that’s the case here.”

Potentially aiding would-be attackers are specialized search engines like Shodan and the Every Routable IP Project, which were designed specifically to locate online devices that may be overlooked or ignored by regular search engines. Indeed, according to Wightman, a quick search using Shodan revealed 117 vulnerable devices directly connected to the Internet, although Wightman said he suspected the computer location service could turn up far more with a more targeted search. To complicate matters further, Wightman said tools for automating the exploitation of the backdoor will soon be made available for Metasploit, a penetration testing tool used by hackers and security professionals alike.

In an alert (PDF) issued Thursday, DHS warned that these search engines are being actively used to identify and access control systems over the Internet, and that combining these tools with easily obtainable exploitation tools, attackers can identify and access control systems with significantly less effort than ever before.

“Multiple threat elements are combining to significantly increase the ICSs threat landscape,” DHS warned. “Hacktivist groups are evolving and have demonstrated improved malicious skills. They are acquiring and using specialized search engines to identify Internet facing control systems, taking advantage of the growing arsenal of exploitation tools developed specifically for control systems. In addition, individuals from these groups have posted online requests for others to visit or access the identified device addresses. Asset owners should take these changes in threat landscape seriously…and should not assume that their control systems are secure or that they are not operating with an Internet accessible configuration. Instead, asset owners should thoroughly audit their networks for Internet facing devices, weak authentication methods, and component vulnerabilities.”

But according to Digital Bond, asset owners — such as power utilities, water treatment facilities — aren’t moving fast enough to take such steps. Indeed, this is the driving premise behind “Project Basecamp,” the company’s endeavor to publish and expose control systems vulnerabilities: Only when control system operators begin to see how these vulnerabilities could be used to disrupt their operations will they be motivated enough to demand that ICS hardware and software vendors make security a priority.

“The goal of Project Basecamp is to make the risk of these fragile and insecure devices so apparent and easy to demonstrate that a decade of inaction will end,” the company explained on its blog. “Everyone knows PLC’s are vulnerable — or so we have heard for ten years now since the 9/11 attacks…Not only do they lack basic security features, they are also fragile. Warnings abound about the dangers of even running a port scan on a PLC. Yet even though “everyone knows” there has been little or no progress on developing even the option of purchasing a secure and robust PLC.”